Throwing Paper Planes
by Kiba Sniper
Summary: Chloe works on her prototype spaceship when the wind takes it elsewhere. When Crystal finds it, she asks to join Chloe in her experiment.


Throwing Paper Planes

A gust of wind took Chloe's paper airplane before she could leap up and catch it. Chloe lowered her hand, watching the breeze carry her plane in a zigzag fashion, whipping and twisting it in the air before it plummeted to the ground. Chloe sighed, shaking her head. Mumbling her detestation for earthly weather patterns, she made her way down the cliff's rocky formations.

When she reached the ground, she landed on her knees with a quiet grunt. Chloe stood up, brushing scuff marks off her legs. She adjusted her helmet, the world glowing in a faint orange hue from her perspective. Searching for her airplane, Chloe frowned at the stretch of forest before her. The trees towered over her, and their shadows extended across the land. When she looked to her left, she saw Ranger Cruller raking leaves into the same pile before the wind inevitably blew them away. Ignoring his immediate scowl when he noticed her and shouted at her to leave, Chloe spun on her heels to begin her search.

Considering sudden breeze, Chloe deducted her airplane would be nearby. She leaned forward, keeping her nose to the ground and flicked her gaze along the grass. She scrutinized the forest. It was all green and brown, two dull colors assaulting her eyes and meshing together. She dared not risk removing her helmet and breathing in toxic oxygen, a poison to a Cygnan like herself, leaving her to squint at every inch of grass and tree roots.

To her delight, she Chloe noticed a sliver of paper hiding behind a tree. She had marked her airplane in deep blue and violet colors on its wings to stand out against the browns and greens. Chloe grinned. No earthling forest deterred her for long in her quest to leave the planet's orbit.

Bending over by the towering tree, Chloe reached for her airplane only for a second hand to appear and take it. Chloe blinked, slowly rising as the figure behind the tree stepped out and weighed the airplane in their palms. Chloe cleared her throat, setting her hand on her hip as the other girl yelped.

"That's mine," Chloe said, pointing at her plane with a small frown.

"Oh! Hi, Chloe!" Crystal exclaimed, quickly setting the paper craft in Chloe's open palm. "Sorry! I hope I didn't look like I was stealing that. That would be really mean."

"I know. The wind carried it," Chloe replied, smoothing the creased edges. Looking around, she noticed Crystal's cohort was nowhere to be found.

Crystal laced her fingers together in front of her belly. "That's a really well-made paper airplane. You look like you could make really cool origami cranes, too, and in fact, Quentin made one for me just last week and-!"

"It's for my work," she said, lifting the airplane to eye level, and Crystal's lips pressed together. Glancing over her shoulder at the cliff, she added, "You've been staying at this camp for a while, so you might be of help to me. Do you know of any higher places? I've tried the roof and some of those hills, but I'm still looking for a place where I can work in peace. It needs to be a place of high altitude. Nothing like the lake or the parking lot."

Crystal hummed. She tapped her chin, mulling over other possible locations in Whispering Rock, and suddenly, she snapped her fingers. Her eyes brightened, and she felt like an imaginary light bulb popped up above her head.

"You know of a place?" Chloe asked, and Crystal nodded.

"The Coach's classroom! That's pretty high in the sky!" Crystal gushed, and Chloe rolled her eyes.

"Negative. Oleander has been snoring in there, and it's irksome," Chloe said, wrinkling her nose. "He also kicked me out when he saw me experimenting with his radio."

"Oh, yeah. Elka said she saw him drooling after class." Crystal laughed, a honeyed note in her voice. Her expression masked any disappointment from Chloe's swift rejection. She lifted her nose to the air, another loud hum bouncing in her closed mouth before she gasped. "What about the loudspeakers by the lodge? They're super high up because they're attached to those poles and have those really nice platforms on them! Clem and I use them to get away from it all when we wanna mix poi-I mean, potions! Cheer potions!"

Chloe watched Crystal chuckle, her lips struggling to remain in a smile. She briefly pondered Crystal's wariness only for her goal to shoot to the forefront of her mind. Maintaining different variables such as height, wind speeds, and air pressure in a plethora of scenarios also included testing her mock spaceship in many locations.

She was hoping to blast off before her time at Whispering Rock ended and forced her to return home to her supposed parents. Considering Crystal's suggestion and her own experience, the lodging area was spacious and had several areas with high vantage points. A small smile tugged at Chloe's lips.

"That's a good suggestion. Thank you," Chloe said, nodding and turning away.

Crystal skipped forward, grasping Chloe's shoulder. "Oh! Um, hey! Mind if I come with you?"

Chloe watched Crystal wrap her arms behind her back, rocking on her heels. She glanced down at her airplane, a pursed frown splitting on her face.

"See, Clem is in class with the coach right now for some extra Basic Braining, and no one really wants to hang out with me," Crystal said, rubbing the front of her neck. "Kitty and Franke said that to me when I saw them making friendship bracelets, but when I saw you, I was sure you'd wanna hang out with me! Besides, um, we haven't really done that so far! So, if you wanna, you know, hang out, we totally should! If you wanna, but I really hope you do!"

As she spoke, Crystal leaned into Chloe. She clasped her hands in front of her chest, and with her slightly taller stature and ponytail, she soon became all that Chloe could see. Chloe glanced around, finding the greenery of the forest and blues of the sky replaced with a magenta ponytail.

Chloe knew others perceived her own nature as naive, but Chloe saw through human farces well. Whenever Maloof offered his protection services, his tone indicated insincerity. He just wanted dream fluffs and arrowheads to mimic Bobby's reign of terror, and she had to wonder why Mikhail abetted him. Even though she helped Bobby work on himself, she noted his intentions to cause terror and bully others for the sake of his own ego. Kitty and Franke were in a catty category of their own cruelty. Chloe remembered how they spread a nasty rumor about her being born in Area 51. Benny lapped it up like a sponge to water, following her around and asking if it was true. Bobby's swift punch to Benny's skull ended his line of questioning, but it restarted Chloe's lecture on using words instead of fists to both of them.

Even though Crystal's approach was strange, her honesty was refreshing compared to the other miscreant earth children. She was somewhat annoying in a peppy, obtuse manner. Always cheering and smiling without a care in the world, Chloe wondered if she could somehow harness Crystal's energy to fuel a spaceship. With Clem as an extra power source, she thought she would have enough power to blast through the atmosphere.

"I don't see any harm in you coming along as long as you don't interrupt my work," Chloe said, and Crystal beamed, eagerly squealing.

"So, like, do you have any more paper so I can make an airplane, too?" Crystal asked, skipping next to Chloe. She watched Chloe raise the paper airplane to her eye level, taking in every pointed edge and smoothing down the wings. Hearing Chloe mumble to herself, Crystal rubbed her forearm.

"This is work. I can't be distracted, so if you keep that up, I'll ask you to leave," Chloe replied after a moment of silence.

Crystal grimaced, biting her lip. She lowered her voice, replying, "Oh, really? Well, it looks kinda fun."

Chloe ignored the rejection lingering in Crystal's eyes. Crystal was already breaking the one rule she established. Inhaling deeply, Chloe shook her head and felt her helmet shake, batting her shoulders. She needed to focus solely on her current project even if her head was beginning to fill up with thoughts of using Crystal as a power source.

Approaching the Main Lodge, Chloe took to the loudspeaker. She tucked the airplane into her pocket, careful to not fully wrinkle it. With a hop, she clutched the speaker pole and climbed all the way to the top in a matter of seconds. Jumping on to the wooden platform, Chloe retrieved her airplane and sat down.

"Whoo! It's so much fun to climb! Also, you're a really good climber, Chloe! You're like a cute, little chimp!" Crystal gushed, pulling herself up the pole, and Chloe furrowed her brow. As Crystal took Chloe's lead, hopping and sitting next to her on the platform, she folded her hands and giggled. "You know, Clem and I come up here all the time! If we're not up here, we're usually on the lodge's roof! It's not as high up, but it's super nice! In fact, I-!"

"That's good, Crystal, but I already told you that I need silence," Chloe interjected, a rare harshness to her tone, and Crystal's shoulders hitched to her earlobes. Glancing at Crystal as she pursed her lips, Chloe readied her airplane.

Standing at her full height, Chloe flicked her wrist and off the plane went. It soared several yards, graceful as a diving bird, and it looped to the left. She watched the curve, feeling the prickling wind on her skin and raised her hand as the plane zoomed back to her. Catching it, Chloe weighed it against in her hand before throwing it off again.

"The wind up here is seems more stable," Chloe said, and Crystal looked up at her, grinning.

"It is! When I'm up here, it's never too breezy," Crystal replied, and when Chloe looked down at her, she rubbed her hands together. Biting the inside of her mouth, she asked, "Um, should I have stayed quiet?"

Chloe shook her head, catching her craft when it returned and said, "No, no. That was much-needed information about the weather." She threw her airplane again, her wrist twisting like she was throwing a curveball. As the breeze took the plane to the left, she said, "Since the wind speed appears to be normal, it seems the lodge's roof or right here would be satisfactory take-off positions."

Crystal nodded, not entirely understanding. "Oh, that's good! Um, what are you taking off for?"

"I'm testing any and all manners of resistance this planet might throw at me. Think of this as pre-alpha experimentation," Chloe said, and Crystal uttered a loud thrum of approval as Chloe jumped up to catch her craft.

"Cool! Does that mean you're gonna build a real plane and take off from camp?"

A small grin split on Chloe's face. "To be specific, it'll be a spaceship."

"Wow! That's super awesome!"

Chloe tossed her plane once more, aiming in the direction of the lake. She watched the breeze carry her craft a little higher, and it curved with swanlike elegance. The sight of her plane turning in the wind let her mind wander as she imagined sitting on that airplane and shooting through asteroid belts and incoming meteoroids.

She wished that could have been her reclining in her sleek spaceship, made with the best materials Earth could offer. With an array of buttons, she imagined pressing each one to bring up defense mechanisms, throttles, and even lasers in case any mere human dared to interfere with her escape. She saw herself splitting through the atmosphere, piercing through the weakened ozone layer and immersing herself in the stars.

Yet, Crystal's hand shot out over Chloe's left shoulder, and Chloe's eyes bulged. Chloe's gasp, strangled in her throat, sounded like a cat having its tail stepped on. She shook her head, feeling her feet shift underneath her only for her airplane to suddenly be in front of her eyes. She felt Crystal's hand on her shoulder, realizing how tense her fingers felt on her, and Chloe shifted away, eyes wide.

"Whoa! Sorry!" Crystal blurted, her voice plummeting Chloe back to reality like gravity slamming her into the ground. She held out Chloe's airplane, pinching the tip of it and wrinkling the paper. The crumpling paper agitated Chloe's ears. "You weren't paying attention, so I kinda grabbed your plane for you! It was coming right at your face."

"You're crumpling it," Chloe said, snatching her airplane away from Crystal. As Crystal recoiled, fidgeting with the hem of her shirt, Chloe shook her head.

Crystal's voice warbled. "Is it, um, okay? I'm really sorry. I just, uh, didn't want it to smack you in the face."

"It's nothing I can't fix," Chloe said, proceeding to smooth down the plane's tip. She scolded herself for not paying attention. She needed to be alert, focused on her goal, and yet, her head was beyond the clouds.

"Oh, but that's okay! It's, like, totally fine! I mean, you're such a great fixer-upper, after all!" Crystal brightened, and Chloe noted the strain in her vocal chords as she cheered.

Chloe watched Crystal quickly cover her eyes and wipe them. She focused her attention back to her airplane. A faint hiccup from Crystal seized Chloe's stomach, twisting it, and Chloe sighed as fragmented words ran through her mind.

"If you're thinking you're being a bother, you aren't," Chloe said, and Crystal straightened, eyes wide.

"Um, no, no, it's okay. I was-"

Chloe tapped the side of her helmet. "Telepathy. It's my strongest psychic ability. Hearing your thoughts isn't too hard for me."

She wondered if it was the bluntness to her explanation that made Crystal's head sag. Chloe rubbed her thumb against her palm as Crystal giggled, a wariness to her laughter that made Chloe's words die in her throat.

"Sorry, sorry. I should've let you catch it, right?" Crystal gripped her elbows, white knuckles pressing against her skin. "I was just thinking, you know, that I was bothering you, and after you said so many times to let you work quietly, I just reacted without thinking again! Stupid, stupid-"

"Your reaction was necessary," Chloe interjected as Crystal's voice started growing shriller, and she slid her fingers against the tip of the plane, smoothing it again. "There's no need to be upset when I'm not angry either. If you think logically, if you didn't react the way you did, then I would've been hit with my own airplane." Chloe shrugged. "That sounds kind of dumb, right? Getting hit in the face with my own airplane all because I was daydreaming is definitely dense."

Crystal gasped in a way that Chloe thought sounded like one of the lungfish Bobby tormented as it choked for air. She appeared like an actress from a silent horror movie ready to grip her pearl necklace as her hand hovered by the collar of her shirt. Crystal's lips stretched into a thin line, and Chloe tilted her head, asking what was wrong. Crystal shook her head, her ponytail swishing left and right.

"If there's one thing I know, then it's that you're totally not dumb. You're, like, one of the smartest people here," Crystal said, once again leaning in closer to Chloe. Her fingers curled into fists, and she raised them into her chest. She pumped them in the air, closing in on Chloe. "In fact, if I had to bet, you're the smartest person here! You're totally brainy and stuff!"

The distance between the two girls was shifting. As Crystal continued forward, Chloe's body leaned backwards. A cool gust hit Chloe's shoulder blades, and Chloe felt her heels tilt over the edge. The sudden weightlessness under her feet caused her eyebrows to shoot up to her hairline, but Crystal seemed vastly unaware of the distance between Chloe and the ground, grinning and cheering for Chloe's intelligence.

Chloe glanced over her shoulder, a few beads of sweat trickling down her brow. "Do you mind backing up a little? I could fall off if you keep coming forward."

Crystal peered over Chloe's shoulder, blinked, and then grinned. She stepped backwards. Chloe straightened, comfortable with her spine no longer being bent at a dangerous angle. She checked the distance between herself and the ground, noting it would have been a nasty fall with definitely a broken bone or two.

"You're super sturdy," Crystal said. She rocked on her heels. "In fact, you're so super sturdy that I bet if you fell off, you wouldn't even get hurt! Like, that's your alien genes, right?"

Chloe hummed, scratching the underside of her helmet. "I appreciate your vote of confidence, but even Cygnans could get hurt from this height."

Crystal gasped, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Well, I bet it wouldn't be too bad! I fell off the lodge roof with Clem, and we both had broken feet and shins for the rest of camp and needed wheelchairs to get all around!" She giggled, and Chloe's mouth fell open. "Though, since you're an alien, I bet you'd survive that!"

Chloe hummed, a low, tentative sound rolling in her mouth. She shrugged, unsure of how to follow up with Crystal's comments. Turning her attention back to her airplane, she offered it to Crystal.

"Wow! Can I throw it?" Crystal gushed, and Chloe could have sworn there were stars twinkling in her eyes.

"Only once," Chloe said, raising her finger, "because I'm also deciding on who I may take with me when I leave this planet. Your spunkiness with Clem will make you both excellent power sources, but if you're good with this, then I might make you my co-pilot."

Crystal squealed, leaping up and down and shouting, "Neat-o! Okay! Here I go!"

Crystal launched the plane out, but to Chloe's bewilderment, one of the seagulls coming from the lake collided with it. It was so sudden that all Chloe and Crystal could do was stare at the squawking seagull flapping its wings and plummeting to the ground along with the airplane. In blank silence, they watched the seagull land on top of the plane and begin pecking at it.

Chloe whistled. "Well, that was unexpected."

"O-O-O-O-M-F-G! I have such bad luck!" Crystal cried, gripping her skull, but before she could bawl, Chloe patted her arm.

"It's fine. It was a freak accident."

Crystal frowned. "But aren't you working hard on this experiment or something like that?"

Chloe shrugged. "You can't really blame yourself when that seagull came out of nowhere. In fact, it taught to always be aware in guess an asteroid suddenly appears."

Crystal rubbed her thumb along her fingernails. "I mean, I guess so. A-as long as, you know, you're not mad or anything."

Chloe shook her head. "I'll just consider that paper plane a failure due to unfortunate circumstances and add the information I learned from you to my log."

Crystal seemed to let her explanation sink in and repeated Chloe's words under her breath only to smile. She nodded, her skull jostling like a bobblehead. Giggling, she threw her arms around Chloe and hugged her tightly, lifting the smaller child off her feet.

"Thank you, Chloe! You're really super duper smart!" Crystal gushed, and Chloe uttered a squeak as her back cracked. Setting Chloe back down, she clapped her hands and added, "Oh! So, I gotta go meet up with JT for some special PSI blast training, but let's catch up afterwards!"

Setting her hand on her back, which she assumed would bruise, Chloe said, "Well, okay."

"Awesome! Bye-bye, Chloe!"

Chloe remained silent as Crystal lunged on to the pole and slid down. A few yipes bounced up from Crystal as the friction burned her hands. She peered over the ledge, watching Crystal stumble to her feet and blow on her reddened hands. As Crystal waved with both hands, Chloe imitated her.

When Crystal scampered off, Chloe sat down. Her legs dangled over the ledge. She sighed, flicking her gaze up to the sky and lied down. She spread her arms out, her time with Crystal flashing in her mind.

Humans really were an interesting species when they weren't being violent. Chloe wrapped her hands behind her helmet, and she grinned at the sun peeking through the clouds. She felt the sun warming her body, and the feeling of Crystal's hands still pressed on her back, leaving her with calmness all around.

She only had a few solidly good interactions with her fellow campers. Crystal, someone she had assumed was another earthling nuisance, was far from it. Deciding to keep the offer of Crystal being her co-pilot on the table, Chloe immersed herself in the fantasy of her small crew and herself soaring through space on the most ingenious spaceship ever built.


End file.
